American Artist’s new exhibition “Shaper of God”, will open on May 28 at Redcat in Los Angeles: this show is a conversation between Artist’s work and Octavia E. Butler’s —both of whom spent their formative years in and around the adjacent communities of Altadena and Pasadena, CA.

Featuring newly commissioned work in video, installation, sculpture and drawing, Shaper of God is the opening chapter of a multiyear research-based project by American Artist, which traces various interconnections between science fiction author Octavia E. Butler’s novels and life, the evolution of rocketry and science fiction in Los Angeles; and the post-war movement of African-diasporic families from the Southern to the Western U.S.

Through multiple forms of media and narrative, the show layers the landscapes in which Butler lived with those she imagined, provoking a rethinking of how history and information are used, and considering how these patterns can unpack the present and grow visions of a new future.
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American Artist: "Shaper of God" is produced and organized by REDCAT and is curated by Adam Kleinman, Lead Curator for North America at KADIST, with Emily Gonzalez-Jarrett. Special thanks to: Eleana Antonaki, Lily Braden, Robyn Braden, Joel Ferree, Annika Svendsen Finne, Gail Irby, Ayana Jamieson, Steve Matousek, Chester Toye, and the Octavia E. Butler archive at The Huntington Library.

American Artist carried out part of their research for this exhibition while a grantee at the LACMA Art + Technology Lab, in communication with Ayana Jamieson, co-founder of the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network as well as at the Octavia E. Butler archive at The Huntington, and through the Ways of Reading initiative at KADIST.